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First, let me make sure I understand what you want to do. You want to take the audio from YouTube videos and import it into Audacity for editing/inspection/processing/etc. Let me know if that's not correct.

Assuming we're on the same page, there are basically two steps involved. First, you have to download the YouTube video (a .flv file). One way to do this is via KeepVid . If you use Firefox, there are also add-ons that make it easy.

Once you have the .flv you need to demux the file (demux = de-multiplex = separate the audio & video portions of the file). You can do that with FLVExtract . I haven't used that app, but it's free and seems to be relatively straightforward.

Once you've done that, you'll have an audio file which you can open with Audacity.

Nothing else required. You could do it with other equipment, but there would be a loss in sound quality and the method I described will be faster once you've done it a time or two. Let me know if you have problems or questions about the process.

EDIT: I should also mention that I've assumed you're using a Windows computer. If not, let me know which OS you use and I'll see if there's a different app for separating the audio & video.

I don't have experience with audacity (yet! Gotta learn it before the next recital!)but assuming it recognizes mp3 files, once you have the .flv file you can convert it to .mp3 at a site like mediacovert to extract just the audio portion. I love mediaconvert...it takes awhile but doesn't require you to download anything.

Mike, if your computer has a soundcard rather than onboard sound, you should be able to record the sound directly into Audacity while viewing the movie. I did this on my previous machine which had a SoundBlaster card installed. If I remember correctly (always questionable), I could hit the record button and select "what you hear" from the dropdown box next to it to do this. My new machine will not allow me to do it, and the only difference I can think of is that it has onboard sound (as do 99.9% of computers today.) One of these days I'll dig up a soundcard and try it again to be certain.

I have Audacity ® 1.3.4-beta (Unicode) and there isn't a drop down box next to the record button. When I hit record it just starts recording with no options. Can you let me know how you're able to do this? Is it because my computer doesn't have a sound card? Thanks.

I use ffmpeg too. For the conversion. Under Windows. In fact, I suspect all the apps mentioned above use ffmpeg libs under their covers.

If you're a firefox 3 user, the free Download Helper plugin does both flv capture and conversion. The download part is free but the conversion part throws a little logo of theirs on unless you register it. So it's kind-of free. It's here: http://www.downloadhelper.net/

But a zoom might be the easiest way to do it if you connect a pc's headphone jack to the Zoom's line inputs with an adapter cable. An all-software approach might be purer in theory... but probably not so much in practice, given YouTube's audio quality.

Originally posted by jazzyprof: If all you want is the audio and not the video you can skip all the previous steps and simply use vidtomp3 .It will go directly from the Youtube video to an mp3. [/b]

Then download to Audacity? I need to be able to change the tempo. I'm not good enough to transcribe at full speed [/b]

That's right. I wasn't aware of the vidtomp3 site, but that'll probably be the easiest way to go. You get an MP3 to download from that site. Save it on your computer (Desktop, My Documents, somewhere you can find it again). Then open Audacity, go to the File menu, select "Open..." and then navigate to where you saved the MP3. Audacity will open it and you can adjust the speed as necessary.